The problem to which this invention relates will be illustrated by reference to bottles of a type used to conventionally store wine but it is not intended that, at least in its broadest sense, the invention should be restricted to only this application.                “It can be argued that closing the bottle remains one of the greatest technical issues facing the wine industry. The winemaker can control many aspects of wine production to create a wine suitable for the marketplace, and yet there can be an unpredictable incidence of problems once the wine is bottled, due in large part to the properties of the closure used”.        Peter Godden & Leigh Francis, The Australian Wine Research Institute, June 2001, Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research, Volume 7, Number 2, 2001.        
It is currently known how to use the material natural cork to close the top of a wine bottle.
Despite being produced from an inherently variable natural product, natural cork has the advantageous characteristic of having an appropriate resiliency so that it can be used to tightly close a bottle top by being inserted inside the mouth in such a way that it will then effect substantial expansion against the inner surface of the bottle mouth to form a liquid and gas seal.
However, a very serious problem exists which is that natural cork is vulnerable to infection such as that caused by trichloroanisoles (TCA) and if an infected cork is used the infection has the probability of affecting the wine and, in more serious cases, seriously tainting the wine.
Estimates of as many as one in ten bottles of wine closed by cork might be affected in this way.
There are additional problems caused by the inconsistencies in the physical properties of natural cork, which can cause random bottle oxidation, seepage and leakage, breakage or cracking during insertion, excessive dust and inconsistent application of surface coating materials. Other problems are regularly encountered, such as crumbling and breaking over time, which becomes obvious at extraction.
The general inconsistency of cork as a closure has driven the development of alternative closures that are manufactured from materials other than natural cork.
Synthetic plugs and metallic screw caps have been developed as alternative closures, but these have not gained the same acceptance as natural cork.
Two general types of alternative closures illustrate the attempts and current difficulties being experienced, in terms of performance and public acceptance.
One attempt has been the manufacture of cylindrical plugs moulded or extruded from synthetic materials that are inserted and extracted in the same manner as traditional cork.
Significant difficulties forming an acceptable seal with foamed plastic may arise from its physical characteristics resulting in problems with flavor scalping, gas transmission and high extraction forces.
This leads to the further difficulty then that conventional extraction might be excessively difficult in some cases for a consumer or, in other cases, the closure would not be sufficient to maintain an adequate seal over a longer period to maintain the integrity of the wine inside the bottle.
Another attempt is the metallic Roll On Pilfer Proof (ROPP) or Roll On Tamper Evident (ROTE) screw cap closure, also referred to under the Trade Mark “Stelvin”.
This approach includes a metal cap which is rolled into a screw thread outside a bottle neck and is able to hold under compression therefore a gasket or seal between an underneath surface of the top of the cap and the top rim of the mouth of the bottle.
This “Stelvin” type closure has been found to provide in the opinion of many the best long term seal to maintain the integrity of the product within the bottle.
There is however a problem with the public acceptance of this type of closure.